


That the Dead May Not Compel the Living

by PerpetuaLilium



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: F/F, Fëanor turning out more sympathetic than I originally intended, LACE-compliant as much as I could make it, Lowkey platonic Indis/Finwë to keep things canon-compliant, Tapestries, Valinor with African flora and fauna, Weaving, platonic marriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-24
Updated: 2015-06-24
Packaged: 2018-04-05 22:25:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4197267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PerpetuaLilium/pseuds/PerpetuaLilium
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, Indis stands and looks at Þerindë's self-portrait, for longer than reason or propriety would require. Sometimes, she and Finwë cross thoughts with each other, and remember the love they hold in common.</p>
            </blockquote>





	That the Dead May Not Compel the Living

Even before it had all begun she had pictured herself with prominent frown lines, done intricately and minutely in the finest threads of barely darker pink against the domed sweep of her forehead. Her lips were pursed, but in a finely rendered way that made it very clear that the mouth to which they were the gateposts would unleash a torrential tirade if you dared to call the expression ‘simpering’. The face was long, but not equine; the hands were held precisely folded over the silver head of an acacia-wood staff; the silver hair poured down over the sloping night-clad shoulders; on the chest there was a brilliant blue-white gem. From a distance, one might take it for Míriel Þerindë in the flesh, gazing impetuously through a thick-framed window.

Finwë knew why she came here, why she took so much trouble to take enough time to while away gazing at this tapestry. He had to know; had he not known then they would not be able to lead the happy, if not exactly peaceful, life together that they so far had done. There was no discussion of explaining the situation to others; they could not understand how things had gotten to this point, but nobody was too terribly unhappy, compared to how things could have gone had there not been such understanding as there had. Even Fëanáro could be reasonable in his way. Yet for her it was of but little comfort, and the tapestry was stern in front of her, self-possessed and self-existent, somewhere where she could only ever look in.

It was easy to think reasonably and plausibly to herself and say that she could not quite call this love. She had not known Þerindë well, and she had come to know Finwë much better. Some would say that there was some contentedness in that, and she could believe that, sometimes. But what he knew was what had always been the case—that it had never really been him that she had loved. There was fondness between them certainly, very great fondness maybe, but they could not quite call it love, and it had built up between them because they had this in common and could speak of it together, that they both held the same love and hunger and desire within their hearts, that she in so many ways did mind them still, whatever the Valar may say.

Sometimes he would sidle up alongside or behind her as she gazed at the tapestry, and spend a few minutes looking at it with her. Then they would retire. He found it a little easier than she did; he had burned so brightly while Þerindë was alive that there was something of the odour of an ember about him now, while her flame, while less bright, was more steady and more stable. She spent a lot of time imploring the images and recollections of Manwë and Varda that existed within her from her childhood on Taniquetil to make her quieter and cleaner, to take away from her whatever unjustified feeling of pomp over her husband existed for having been able to maintain herself in this way better than he had.

They would sit over a repast of amaranth and springbok and gaze at each other, but listlessly. Their fondness did grow; let it never be claimed that their fondness did not grow. Yet it really was a fondness of that commonality. She knew that with Þerindë she would have had no commonality; Þerindë had been so intense, so articulate; but that was part of what she had seen and what she had always loved and she would in no way dare to claim that there was a thing wrong with her wanting that, with her wanting to in that way grasp what she herself did not have. She wondered if Þerindë might have felt that also in some other more appropriate season. Wondering did no real good but it still stayed as if coiled, as if festering in her mind, wan and sickly as the exterior was bright and gay. She sang louder to cover and account for it, then.

It was unfortunate what difficulty there existed in the world outside and beyond them. There was enmity with the followers of Fëanáro, in a lot of ways more so than with Fëanáro himself because he at least was bound by the basic conventions of mere politeness. The misfortune grew the more thought she gave to it. Some days she avoided looking at the tapestry, and only really thought about it at all while in bed with Finwë. Meals too for some reason kept being difficult. She supposed it was lucky for her that she was the type to be able to press these things down when she had to. In that way also she was perhaps unlike her love, though not for her to pass anything like judgment. Not for her to even wonder about these things, though it was ever-difficult not to. It was ever-difficult and she wished she could speak with certain others about that difficulty, not always the ones she might have expected herself to be interested in speaking to. Life was very long. Against them and theirs, all other things were fleeting. Maybe some day she would screw up her courage and go and speak to somebody about this, but as it was even with Finwë it was all unspoken understandings and some judicious amount of sanwe-latya.

She had a hard time thinking about how things were when Telperion was shining in his full raiment. It was so like Þerindë, elegant and forceful. How could she ever communicate it, even within her own thoughts? What was there, even? A hard time too she had of it when the consonant shift started, and when she found herself in secret agreeing with Fëanáro. If she could only speak with him about this then they might be able to get this solved. If they could only all speak openly about this together then none of them would have to suffer quite so much, although the suffering would still mar them because Þerindë would still and always be gone. She knew that even were she not gone her love would never stand even the remotest chance of fulfilment; that chance had passed long ago, if it had ever existed at all. But there was still something unbearably piquant and poignant in that loss, still something unbearably aching and searing within Indis’s heart, still something sweet and everlasting that there was really no way of knowing or understanding in the end.


End file.
